Lindy Hoppin' Linus

What follows are random thoughts, odd musings, and general reflections. Perhaps this creates a portal into the complicated workings of my mind, or perhaps it's just a loosely connected string of ideas that pour out of my head and ooze into the keyboard of my laptop...you decide.

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Upside-...up?

Ever wonder what the world would be like if it turned upside-down for the day? [So, maybe you don't, but after reading this, perhaps you will...?]

'Course, you'd still be "right-side-up" in relation to the way things used to be - to heighten the effects of the world turning upside-down so you can better appreciate the change.

What would things look like?

We'll say, for the sake of simplicity, that gravity stays relative to whatever position you or anything else is in. So, your gravity stays "down" to you, while everything else has it's gravity "down" to it (which would be "up" to you). Then, I suppose the question would be what would happen to your gravity if you touched something in the "upside-down" world? Or, likewise, what would happen to its gravity? Would it be a matter of which thing had more mass? For example, if you touched a lamp or something with less mass than you, would it yield to your gravity? And, similarly, if you touched a sofa or something with more mass than you, would you yield to its gravity? That seems plausible... though it'd be awfully weird. And then, following this vein, if you touched something of equal mass, would your collective gravities cancel each other out, making you both temporarily weightless? And you'd both just sort of float there - sandwiched between your equal forces of gravity pressing down on each other? Hmm, really odd... and totally sweet!

But, perhaps that's not what would happen at all. Perhaps, since your 'world' is significantly smaller than the rest of the world (that has been turned upside-down), if you touched anything in the upside-down world, you'd automatically change to its relative gravity direction? That'd be really weird, too - and almost eliminate the whole point of this whole idea. Let's say that this is not what happens, just because it doesn't suit my needs for this imagined world. :) [I love being able to make the rules...hehehe.]

Maybe nothing happens to your gravity or the gravity of the object/person/whatever you touch. Maybe you both keep your relative gravity. -Yeah, actually, I really like that. Okay, I'm now officially defining this as the rules for gravity in this upside-down world (minus you, who's still right-side-up).

But that's all the practical stuff. I guess I'm more interested in what everything would look like from the upside-down perspective. You know how if you look at someone's face upside-down for an extended period of time, your vision realigns itself to make that person's chin seem to be the top of his/her face? And it looks oddly both correct and really off? Yeah, imagine that happening to the whole world!!!

Pictures would realign themselves. [What would the Mona Lisa look like upside-down?]Your favorite landscape views would have grass above and sky below. Skyscrapers would point "down" in relation to you. You'd walk on the ceiling of buildings - have to dodge lights instead of furniture as you walk. There's a whole score of crazy things that would change perspective in all sorts of cool ways! The possibilities! [Ooh, brain overload. Pause for readjustment...]

It's also kinda fun to imagine what the rest of the world would be thinking when they saw you walking upside-down relative to them. I mean, as far as they're all concerned, they never changed orientation. YOU did. So you'd be like the ultimate party-trick to them. Or a really fantastic magician. Or some crazy anomaly. -Let's be serious...all of those things would be pretty freakin' cool, right? :)

[So, a little odd for a Saturday morning? Definitely. But what else are you gonna do on Saturday at 9:00 am when you've woken up and want to sleep more but can't make yourself fall back to sleep? I'd like to see you come up with something better.]